Sustainability practices in the footwear and clothing sector: an analysis on Italian companies

Clothing and textile production is one of the most polluting industries in the world. Its sustainability challenge involves multiple, interrelated, and complex issues, therefore these sectors now play a key role in the global public discourse on climate change, chemical society, water shortage, and human rights (Boström and Micheletti, 2016). Such attitude provides incentives for sustainability information-driven behavior and calls for a clear focus on circularity in the production process, throughout the entire organization (Thorisdottir and Johannsdottir, 2019). The sustainability agenda has developed over the last four decades and emphasized collaboration between governments and organizations, to implement strategies with a focus on sustainability related-issues, and for the first time, through the Paris agreement, governments are responsible for such collaboration to mitigate climate change and pollution (Foley et al., 2017). For companies, dealing with these issues could lead to a growth opportunity, cost reduction and even develop a competitive advantage over competitors (Goworek et al., 2020). The aim of this study is to develop an exploratory analysis (Malhotra and Grover, 1998), in order to analyze if and to what extent sustainability practices are adopted by Italian companies in the textile and footwear sector, what are the main reasons that prompted companies to adopt these practices and what are the main advantages deriving from their implementation and the main barriers encountered.